


they were about you

by amatchforyourmadness



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 04, Pre-Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:28:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23203222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amatchforyourmadness/pseuds/amatchforyourmadness
Summary: If love was easy, Finn wouldn't have slept with Clarke five days into meeting her and Emori wouldn't be turned on by him only when he was recklessly putting his life on the line. Raven wasn't easy either, to her credit and his frustration, but she was comforting enough.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & John Murphy & Raven Reyes, Bellamy Blake/Raven Reyes, Emori & John Murphy (The 100), Emori/John Murphy (The 100), John Murphy & Raven Reyes, John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	they were about you

> **Abditory**
> 
> (n.) a place into which you can disappear, a hiding place

He wasn't a fan of books, really, and he certainly wasn't a fan of dictionaries, but that one seemed interesting enough. 

Mostly because he was bored.

Echo and Bellamy were using the one room with a proper television for date night and all other books (exactly 6 of them) were either taken (Harper and that romance about the rich douche and the witty girl who lowers his standards), too complicated for him (some advanced chemistry shit that even Monty hadn't dared touch) or too complicated and taken (Raven and all the mechanic-related things about the ship and Monty once more with the guide to the synthetic crops of the ring).

He had hoped to use it on Emori; romantic words and poems were worth a shot to try and fuel that relationship as long as he could get it to last (probably not much) and he was always the closeted romantic. Nevertheless, the poetry book he could swear had been on the stand on the first day they had arrived in the Ring had disappeared, and Harper had swore she had not took it or seen it (and obviously he wasn’t about to go around asking people for a poetry book that he had probably made up). Three weeks in, he had become fascinated with the various words of seemingly different origins and all their meanings. In the ring, bored and restricted as they were, with most people getting the fun things first no one really missed a dictionary, so Murphy kept it without ever talking about it out loud.

So now he was in his abditory… And by that he meant Raven's lab, observing as she read lines of codes with blueprints displayed in every other screen, trying to link one thing to the other with such a concentrated expression she might as well have forgotten the rest of the universe existed. The frown to her brows, tho, was not good news and it did little to see such as faint hints of frustration and despair worked their way into her features, leaving Raven ever more tense and making her look ever more tired. Maybe he ought to ask, maybe he ought to offer his assistance, to try to help, but he has the nagging feeling he will be undoubtedly useless and that she would not very much like to answer him, anyways. Instead, he knocked softly against the doorframe he had been leaning. Her dark eyes rose to him, less surprised than curious about the visitor only for her to smile tiredly at the sight of him and return her gaze to her work.

“You do know this is my work area, not your hangout spot, right?"

“Yeah, but you're my hangout person and you won't ever leave this place so….”

She grunts something similar to a “touché” and he takes it as permission to stay (not that he needed anyways), making his way to behind her so he could watch over her shoulder whatever it was she was working in. It was worse than greek, and he had never even seen how greeks wrote back in the day.

He bet Bellamy knew though, the absolute nerd.

“How're you doing today, John?”

“Well enough.” He shrugs, snickering as he looked for somewhere to lean into. “Ate Monty's algae and didn't get comatosed. I appreciate the small things. You?”

“Trying to figure this ship out but what else is new?” Raven says, hand rested against her waist as she sighs heavily. “I hate to say it, but I miss ALIE sometimes.The bitch made everything easier, killing me or not.”

He grimaces at that, turning to her with disapproval all but irradiating from him like Clarke and Bellamy were prone to do.

“I'm biased, but I would put my life in Raven's hand a thousand times and in the lunatic AI who bombed Earth, hmmm, let me see… zero. Give yourself some credit, Reyes, you survived the end of the world. This is but a machine.”

“Did you honestly just reference Monty Phyton?”

“Yes. Go on, praise me, I'm many things but an uncultured swine isn't one of them. Hey, do you think that's where our Monty got his name from?”

“I sincerely doubt it.”

The good humour hangs on the air for a moment or two, before she's back at her work and John is back at being a living carpet, eyes closed and listening to the sounds Raven makes, reassuring him she's there still and still very willing to pay him company.

In a comfortable silence like that, all he had were his thoughts. And his thoughts were that abditory was a weird fucking world, but it has a nice meaning. But above all of this, he wonders how does one pinpoints their own when they have more options to them than the handful of rooms in a spaceship floating about space ( _ yes, he knows they're drifting, Raven, but he'll use the word he wants _

How did the lucky few who survived on the bunker below them found an abditory? Was there even a peaceful place for them to find in there? Had the ground ever had a peaceful place anywhere on it? Had space?

He frowns and cracks one of his eyes open at the curse Raven lets out from above him, pushing the papers and the screens away and taking her hands to her face and hair as she tried to work out her frustration.

There are a couple of realisations that hit him at once.

“Hey.” John offers, nudging her foot with his gently, until she glances downwards to him with that tired but endeared expression, actually taking a break from her work to hear him out. “You'll figure this out. You always do.”

Nowhere was peaceful. People made it peaceful, as much as they could manage.

She smiles, letting her head fall and shaking it lightly with a chuckle. He watches as she takes in a deep breath, nods to herself a couple of times and then at him once. She moves, braced leg and slight winces of pain, and bushes his foot back.

There was no natural abditory, no hole to hide on that a person could conveniently stumble on and settle for. People made their own abditory.

“Thank you, Murphy.”

And he quite liked his.


End file.
